


Something Special for Her Special Girl

by winterune



Series: Follow the Yellow Flowers: Aerith Week 2021 [1]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Aerith Week 2021, Day 1: Happy Birthday Aerith!, Family, Family Feels, Feels, Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 12:55:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29260830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterune/pseuds/winterune
Summary: [Aerith Week 2021]Like every year, whenever Elmyra asks her what she wants for her birthday, Aerith only says that they can do what they usually do. But it has been three years since Aerith moved in with her, and Elmyra wants to do something for her special girl.
Relationships: Aerith Gainsborough & Elmyra Gainsborough
Series: Follow the Yellow Flowers: Aerith Week 2021 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2149914
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	Something Special for Her Special Girl

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't plan to write a birthday fic, until I thought, 'hey, why not write something from Elmyra's POV?' So here it is, my Aerith birthday fic written for Aerith Week 2021, Day 1 prompt: Happy birthday, Aerith! 
> 
> Hope you enjoy it :)

It was Aerith’s tenth birthday today. February 7th. When they had just started living together, Elmyra had asked the little girl how old she was.

“Seven. I just turned seven a few months ago. February. February seventh.” She’d grinned—that toothy grin that stretched from ear to ear. “Seven and seventh. Don’t they seem like lucky numbers?”

They sure did, even though that year hadn’t been quite lucky for them. The girl had lost her mother, while Elmyra… Her husband never came back from the war.

Now, three years later, Aerith was playing in the flower garden they’d built outside their house. In pots or vases or planted in the stretch of land across the small wooden bridge, all manners of flowers in various sizes, shapes, and colors bloomed. Aerith’s small body bobbed here and there among the yellow ones. Apparently they were her favorites. When the sun wasn’t too high and the heat was just right, Elmyra would find her dozing among the flowerbed. Brown bangs framed her round, angelic face as her chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm.

Elmyra shifted her attention toward her bowl, where she was mixing a batter of egg, sugar, and flour. She was making a chocolate cake. Like every year, she’d asked what Aerith wanted to do for her birthday, and like every year, her daughter had tilted her head to the side and folded her arms, one finger tapping on her chin as though in deep thought. The gesture always put a smile on Elmyra’s face, and though a part of her had expected what answer would come out of her daughter’s mouth, her chest couldn’t help but fall every time she heard it. 

“We can just do what we usually do," Aerith had said. Which was dinner, with soup or stew or something fancier like she’d done before. But it had already been three years since Aerith moved in with her, and Elmyra wanted to do something special.

“Don’t you want a birthday party?” she'd asked.

Aerith had shaken her head. "That's alright. Just having dinner with you is already fun." Her grin had been bright, but despite her sunny disposition, Elmyra had noticed the melancholy tinge on her daughter's features. Had she and Ifalna never thrown a birthday party before? Or was it because Aerith didn't have friends her age?

It had come to Elmyra’s attention that Aerith rarely played with the other children. She either tended to the flowers or helped the slum residents with their daily work. Not only once had Elmyra spotted Aerith at the community center, chatting with the elderly, or at the local bar, helping them take orders on busy days.

Yet when Miss Livy from Leaf House had informed her that the children had gone to play at the abandoned church, her quiet relief had almost been palpable. Because Aerith had taken a liking to that church, and every afternoon, she would come home dirty and sweaty, her dress in disarray and her hair coming out of its plaited braid. Elmyra had beamed and asked how her day had been, to which Aerith grinned and said, “They finally bloomed, Mom!” She’d presented a single stem of those yellow flowers she loved so much. Elmyra had only stared, fighting to maintain her smile. Maybe it was Elmyra’s own fault, for being too busy making a living to pay more attention to her adoptive daughter.

Voices drifted in from the open window then. Elmyra looked up from her bowl and spotted a woman entering their little clearing. Tall and lean, her dark brown hair tied into a little ponytail, she called Aerith when she spotted the little girl by the flowers. Aerith looked up from her crouch, her face lighting up at the stranger’s call.

“Miss Livy!” Aerith waved both her hands high. “What are you doing here?”

“I wanna see your mom for a bit. Is she inside?”

Aerith nodded, so vigorously Elmyra feared the girl would sprain her neck. Aerith pointed at the cottage on the other side of the clearing and said to go right ahead. Miss Livy thanked her with a smile, and Aerith smiled back, waving at each other before Livy made her way to the house.

Elmyra had put down her bowl and spatula by the time the knock came, rubbing her hands on her apron as she told Miss Livy the door wasn’t locked.

“Sorry to bother you, Elmyra—” She cut off her voice when she spotted the disarray on the dining table, a messy jumble of flour and eggs and cocoa powder—the kitchen counter had been too small and too cluttered to fit all the cake ingredients and utensils. With one hand still on the half-open door, Miss Livy’s dark brown eyes crinkled behind her glasses. “I guess you’re busy.”

“No, no, not at all,” Elmyra said, waving her guest over. “Please, come in. I was just making a cake for Aerith.”

“Oh? Did she finally ask for one?” The door closed with a soft click, Miss Livy strode over to the table and peered into the batter. “It’s looking good so far.”

Elmyra broke into a chuckle. “I’ve only just started, Liv.”

Livy was a woman a few years younger than her, and a close friend. She ran the Leaf House orphanage just outside the tunnel leading out of Elmyra's house.

“She didn’t ask for anything actually,” Elmyra went on, her lips pursed into a thin line. “Not a party, or a gift, or even a cake. But I know she wants one, so I’m making it, at the very least.”

“A surprise cake?”

Elmyra shook her head. “She knows. Offered to help, even, but I refused. It’s her special day, after all.” Still, Elmyra wished she could do more. Aerith might not be her biological daughter, but she was her daughter nonetheless.

Livy seemed to have caught on to Elmyra's thoughts, because she then pulled a chair from under the dining table and sat. “Well, how about this, then?” she said, leaning forward and dropping her voice to a whisper. “I talked to everyone at the Leaf House and we decided to throw Aerith a party. Of course, only if you’re on board with it. Everything's set, you have nothing to worry about. All we need now is for the girl to come. I know she’s not close with the kids, and it may all seem pretentious, but…” She gave her shoulder a little shrug. “I figured she might enjoy it.”

It was an interesting idea, and Elmyra was already halfway on board with it. The only thing keeping her from agreeing outright was the thought that Aerith might not want it. The girl had never asked for anything—not a toy, or a doll, or even money to buy some sweets. Was it because Elmyra was a single parent? Did Aerith worry about her financial status? That was not the kind of thing a ten-year-old should have to be concerned about. Or… Was it because Elmyra wasn’t her real mother?

Before she could follow that train of thought, the door burst open and Aerith barreled inside. “Miss Livy!” She threw herself around the orphanage caretaker, beaming. The girl always had a knack with older people, and Livy returned the enthusiasm with a similar sentiment, pulling her onto her lap as Aerith told her about all the flowers blooming outside. 

“What were you talking with Mom, Miss?” she asked later.

Livy threw a quick sideways glance at Elmyra, and in that brief second when their eyes made contact, Elmyra saw the question brimming in her friend’s eyes:  _ how about it?  _ Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to surprise Aerith with it.

“Miss Livy was asking for flowers, Aerith,” Elmyra said in Livy’s stead. “She wanted to decorate the orphanage, so I told her to go ahead and take whichever she likes.”

The green in Aerith’s eyes glowed bright, and she looked at Miss Livy with excitement. “I can show you. I planted all of those in the garden, so I know everything about them. Of course, Mom helped too.”

“You did?” Livy's acting was marvelous. 

Aerith nodded, grinning from ear to ear. “Mom told me h—” 

She stopped, catching herself mid-sentence, a half-pause that left her mouth slightly ajar. Elmyra and Livy peered into her, at the way she drew back into herself, her eyes taking on a distant look. Not a moment before she jerked as if broken out of a trance, shaking herself free of whatever ghosts haunted her mind. Aerith blinked when she realized the two women were staring at her, her eyes flitting over to Elmyra briefly before finding purchase at the dining table’s wooden texture. 

“My other mom, that is,” she said, her voice small. “She told me how.” 

Elmyra's heart gave a little twinge of pain. Of course. It had only been three years since Aerith lost her mother. Sometimes, Elmyra could still picture it, that dark night at the train station, when she'd been waiting for her husband to return only to find a dying woman sprawled on the platform. It had always amazed her how quickly Aerith accepted that Ifalna was gone, and that she now had a new home, a new mother, and a new life. It had almost been enough to see her as mature despite her age. But Aerith was still a ten-year-old who probably missed her mother dearly. The more she watched her daughter, the more Elmyra saw how Aerith's smile was trained, her laugh forced, belying a deep sense of loneliness Aerith never cared to show. 

“She really does a wonderful job with the garden, you know,” Elmyra said, filling in the silence. Aerith looked back and over her shoulder. Her green eyes met blue, Elmyra’s eyes crinkled in a gentle warmth, giving her daughter a soft, encouraging smile. “You won’t see anywhere in Midgar with this much vegetation growing in one place.” The little tinge of melancholic contentment caressing Aerith’s features was enough to let her know her comfort had come through to her. “What do you say? You want to help Miss Livy bring the flowers back to the orphanage?” 

Her daughter nodded then, the momentary sorrow gone from her face. Aerith leaped off Miss Livy’s lap, then led the orphanage caretaker out of the house and into the garden beyond. Their light yet enthusiastic chatter betrayed just how much Aerith loved her flowers. Building the flower garden around their house had also been her idea. 

When news of Elmyra’s husband’s death had still been new and raw, her grief dark and endless, Aerith had come and pulled at her sleeve. In her hand had been the most beautiful flower Elmyra had ever seen. A yellow lily, her daughter had said, it’s long petals thin and elegant, curling outward around the edges as if inviting her to smell it. And what a wonderful scent it had. Aerith had planted it outside, where the water was so fresh that she could cultivate a little patch of land off to one side of the waterfall. The voices had told her about it. 

“The voices?” Elmyra had asked her. 

Aerith had nodded. “Like the voice that said Mom had gone back to the Planet. Or the one that told me your husband came to see you.”

Elmyra had remembered that, just a few days before she’d received the letter announcing her husband’s death. She had thought Aerith had been joking, but when the letter arrived, she’d come to realize that the child was not who she had seemed to be. 

An Ancient—that’s what the people who’d come looking for her had called her. Those primal ancient beings Elmyra had once thought were only fairy tales in books. Yet here was living proof of that ancient race, possessing powers she could never have imagined possible. 

“Do you not like it?” Aerith’s question had come in quiet, jarring Elmyra out of her reverie. The little girl had her brows drawn, lips pressed in a thin line. 

“Of course, I love it, sweetheart. What makes you think otherwise?”

“You’re not saying anything.”

Elmyra had blinked, realizing how Aerith had taken her silence. She’d given a little shake of her head, then drew her daughter into her arms, settling her on her lap. “It’s a lovely gift, honey.”

“Really?”

“Of course.”

Aerith’s smile had been hesitant, but when Elmyra tightened her arms around that small body, pressing a featherlight kiss on her scalp, the smile had blossomed into the sweetest one Elmyra had seen on her yet.

“Did the voices say anything else?” Elmyra had asked. 

It had been a little thing—a slight widening of her eyes and a quiet gleeful glint. Her smile had turned radiant as she said, “They said it means reunion. So maybe, someday, you can meet your husband again, Mom.”

Elmyra had only been able to stare at Aerith, transfixed. Never would she have thought that comfort and consolation would come in the form of a seven-year-old. The little smile blossoming on her face had been instantaneous as a single tear rolled down her face. Those little green orbs looked at her, the face soft and angelic. Cetra or not, there was no word to describe the deep love Elmyra felt for her. That even though they’d only just met, it had always felt like they’d known each other for a lifetime. 

Elmyra wondered sometimes whether Ifalna had known, through whatever voice or force the Planet worked with, that Elmyra was someone she could trust with her daughter’s life. That she would be there in the right place at the right time. That even though the Planet took her husband away, they’d given her this sweet and lovely bundle of joy to keep her company. 

Laughter wandered in from outside. Beyond the window, Elmyra saw Aerith picking the most vibrant flowers from her garden and putting them into a small basket. Her beam bright, she laughed at something Livy said to her.

What would Livy do if she were to know about Aerith’s heritage? Would she stay away like the children did? Deem her odd and shun her away? Because she might not understand, and people never liked things they could not understand. Even so, Elmyra hoped this moment would last a little longer. If only so Aerith could keep smiling like that.

**~ END ~**

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it :) Please leave kudos/comments if you find the fic to your liking! Thank you^^


End file.
